1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally systems management and, more particularly, to a method and system for management and configuration of remote agents.
2. Description of the Related Art
Systems management involves the supervision of information technology in an enterprise. System management tools may include two primary elements, agents and managers. The agents are the entities that provide an interface to a device that needs to be managed, such as a server, router, bridge, hub, printer, etc. The device, such as a server, can contain a series of managed objects, such as hardware, configuration parameters, performance statistics, etc. which can all be managed by the agents. The manager can be a user interface to enable a user, such as a network administrator to perform management functions, such as constantly viewing and changing the configuration and status of remote agents.
It is useful if users, such as network administrators are able to discover agents and remotely manage them from a central management console through a web based service. In addition, it is useful if managers are able to accurately receive alert notifications to alert them of changes that can occur on an agent system. In globally distributed networks, there is a very high likelihood of a firewall, proxy server, and/or virtual private network (“VPNs”) between the agent nodes and the management console. It is useful if a manager is able to discover, manage and configure a wide variety of agents through a single management console across the firewall, proxy server, and/or VPNs.
Simple Network Management Protocol (“SNMP”) is a standard designed to help managers remotely manage devices, such as servers, printers, routers, etc. However, in the presence of a firewall, proxy server, or VPN, SNMP can prove to be unreliable.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide a reliable and effective way to ensure that remote agents are able to send alerts to the event console, and are effectively managed and configured.